Stupid and not so funny stories from my drinking years

Episode one

The first time I really recall getting into trouble with alcohol was many years ago. I was on my paper round early in the morning. It was the last paper delivery before Christmas. Coming to the end of my round I arrived at a friends house. As I was about to push the paper through the door, he opened it and asked me if i wanted a Christmas drink. I said yes. He invited me in and gave me a glass of whiskey, which made me gag and almost throw up. It was the first time I tasted whiskey. He asked me if I wanted another. I said that I would deliver the last couple of newspapers first, then come back, which I did.

He once again invited me in and gave me another glass of whiskey, which i drank, and it didn't make me gag, I liked it. So I had another one, then another. Then I was sick, and very quickly found I couldn't stand up. I certainly couldn't ride my bike all the way home. This left my friend with a dilema. He had to go out, and I couldn't go anywhere. He most definitely couldn't leave me in the house, so he half carried me down to the bottom of the garden, and carefully placed me in a wheelbarrow, where I promptly passed out.

When I came to, it was beginning to get dark. It was four o'clock in the afternoon, and I woke up still in the wheel barrow feeling as if i had been hit by a truck, and promptly threw up all over the shed floor. I then got up, walked down the garden path, got on my bike and rode home. I had a hell of a job explaining to my mother where i had been all day, and how she didn't smell the booze on me I'll never know.

I was just fifteen years old, and even then, I didn't know when to stop. It was many years before I ever touched whisky again, but the experience didn't stop me drinking other types of alcohol. And it didn't stop me becoming an alcoholic. Eventually I grew to love whiskey.

To be continued

Putting the record straight

Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall. (Prov. 16:18).

I watched my favourite pastor, Bayless Conley, on the television this morning, talking about the above passage, and I realized something I that I feel the need to share. I have been clean and sober for more than seven and a half years now, and my life is good. It is filled with the love of my friends and family, a job I love and all that I need to sustain me.

Despite the fact that I have written about the manner of my recovery in my book and on my website, there is reluctance among people to accept my explanation, and even more disappointing is the reluctance on my part to be honest and humble in my spoken explanations. I suppose I still feel fear about being ridiculed and my pride seems to be more important than the truth.

When people have come to me and said, as they have on many occasions: ‘well done John, you’re doing great’, I’ve been too willing to sit back and take the praise, and too filled with pride to put them straight. At first, in the early days of my sobriety, I did try to tell people that my recovery was not my doing, but that the Lord came to me in my hour of need when I asked for His help.

Their replies went along the lines of, ‘Yeah, John, but it was you really, your own hard work and will power that got you sober and keeps you sober, so well done mate’. And I accepted this compliment; I let it go, because it was easier to let it go than to argue the point. I was afraid they would think me bonkers, or would not want to know me because of my new found faith and my beliefs, so I just kept quiet and bathed myself in the praise, to the point where I even started to believe it myself.

This morning I prayed to the Lord to give me the strength and the words to put this situation right, to be able to tell it as it is once and for all, without fear of ridicule in both my written and spoken word. So I tell you all now that I am not responsible for my sobriety, I did not do it. God gave me sobriety; He and He alone gave me back my life in answer to a simple prayer. There is no other explanation, and none is needed, nor should be looked for.

I no longer wish to take credit for something I didn’t do. My will power was not responsible for my recovery; it was almost responsible for my death. My history of relapses and hospitalizations and complete inability to do anything about my drinking should make that quite clear to everybody. I would be long dead by now had it not been for the intervention of God in my life. A God, it must be said, who I had rejected for most of my adult life, in the pursuit of pleasure and my own self gratification, was still there when I called on His name and surrendered myself to Him. He did not reject me when I needed Him.

So, the next time I tell you how long I’ve been sober, please don’t say ‘well done mate, you’re doing great, you should be proud of yourself’; just say, ‘praise the Lord, for Him, nothing is impossible’.

REHAB

No two people are going to have the same experiences or the same end results where rehab is concerned. Some will rebel against it, as I have seen on many occasions; they just don’t want to be there. It depends greatly on why you are there and what you want to get out of it, or put another way, whether or not you are serious about your recovery. You have to want sobriety more than life itself for any type of therapy to work, including rehab, otherwise it just become ‘dry time’, and all you think about is getting out and having a drink. Been there, done that.

Many of the people I met in rehab were there because they had been sent by the courts, as an alternative to going to prison. Many of them did not want to be there, and indeed, had no intention whatsoever of giving up their drug of choice. They were just ‘doing their time’ in a much easier place than prison, and basically having a good time winding up the staff and doing their utmost to disrupt the normal day to day routines of the place.

To me, the Diana Princess of Wales Treatment Centre was my life saver. I went there because I had reached rock bottom and I believed that rehab was my last chance. Of one thing I am certain. If you really want it to work, then rehab is the best place to help you succeed in your desires to bring a halt to your addiction, whatever it is.

There are always going to be those who want to break the rules, bringing in, or having somebody else bring in, alcohol and drugs. Random breath testing and urine testing were a regular feature of my last rehab. Thankfully I managed to stay clear of all of that nonsense, but several people didn’t, ending up being made to leave or return to the courts for further decisions to be made about their future, possibly being sent to prison.

As in any institution with such a mix of people and emotions, there are sometimes physical altercations, and I also managed to stay clear of them. My experience is that rehab is basically a safe place, if you want it to be. If you can concentrate on looking after your own recovery, and not get involved with the politics and cliques, then rehab can work, as it finally did for me.

Rehab only worked for me when I got myself involved. It’s not enough to go through the motions, just being there and doing the minimum amount of work.  You need to go to the AA meetings, which were not compulsory in my rehab, but so important. It’s there that I learned about the big book and the third step prayer, which I believe saved my life.

You need to go to the relapse prevention classes to learn about how to cope with cravings and temptations when you get back out in the real world, and learn about the dangers of going back to the same old stomping grounds and the same people that you used to mix with.

It’s important to join in the group therapy sessions and learn how to be honest with other people and with yourself. Don’t hold back, we all do the most incredibly stupid things when we are drinking, share them with others, you’ll hear a lot of very similar stories. When it comes down to it, you’ll find that you have more similarities with the people you are sharing with than you have differences, no matter what your background is. In rehab, you are all just addicts, and it matters not one jot what you are addicted to, or whether you are a pauper off the streets, or a managing director of a huge corporation. Addiction is a great leveler.

Don’t be afraid to talk to the counselors, many of them will have been through exactly the same as you, they are there to help, not to punish. Some of the residents that I knew saw them as authority figures, like prison guards or the police. They only harmed themselves with this view point. By the time you reach rehab, you are probably very vulnerable, but you need to be able to trust somebody, because you sure as day is day, you can’t trust yourself. Listen to what they have to say, it may just save your life.

Rehab is not a great place to be, it really isn’t. Three months or longer away from friends and family is tough. But it is worth sticking it out and learning as much as you can about yourself and your addiction. It may introduce you to organizations like the AA or NA for the first time. Above all it gives you hope that there is a better life for you out there, you don’t have to live this way. I can say with complete honesty that without my rehab experience which led to the AA, the Big Book and the third step prayer, I would most definitely not be alive today. So, in my case, the best thing I ever did in my entire life was to go to rehab.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cW3RJpA0Wxs&feature=share

Intervention

I watched a heartbreaking episode of 'Intervention' last night which concerned a young gay man's addiction to alcohol. It's difficult to remember a time when I have seen a human being in such pain. The pain of his partner and his family were evident too. Nobody quite knowing what to say or what to do to help this young man.

I'm not completely convinced about the worth of the 'intervention' process yet. I have seen many of these programmes and I am still waiting for a completely happy ending. The process seems to involve coercing the unfortunate individual into a treatment programe on pain of loosing everything that is dear to him or her if they do not agree. They then end up in treatment because others have virtually forced them into it, rather than making the decision for themselves.

This story last night had a particularly unhappy ending, which took me completely by surprise, and the sad ending only merited a couple of subtitles on screen just before the closing credits, which told us that after 90 days in treatment, the young man went back home sober, then had several relapses before he took his own life.

I almost cried. It looked for all the world at the end of his treatment. like he was going to make it. He seemed to have regained his health and his youthful looks, but there must have been things so dreadfully wrong in his world that he could see no way of carrying on with this life.

I remember many times during my addiction asking God not to let me wake up because I could see no future, and cursing and crying when I did wake up and had to reach for the bottle to stop the withdrawals from starting. I can't imagine the pain a person has to be in to go that one step further and deliberately end one's life.

I will continue to watch the programme in the hope that one day a catch one that has a happy ending.

Living sober

Now I know this is going to sound a little stupid, but for me it was never about stopping drinking. Despite the trauma of many withdrawals, stopping turned out to be the easiest bit. God knows I did it enough times. Unfortunately, every time but the last, I started drinking again within a very short period of time. So for me it was never about the stopping, it was about the staying stopped, it was really about how to face life without alcohol, my best friend and comforter for more than thirty years.

I know you have to do all the usual things to help you stay sober, like staying away from pubs and clubs and other places where alcohol is available. Going to AA meetings and mixing with like minded people is important for some, there is strength in numbers.

But there's more to it than that. What is required is a complete change of mindset. I went from being completely dependent and reliant on alcohol to even get out of bed, to a realisation that I could live my life very happily without alcohol. Many times I have asked myself where my change of mind came from. Although deep down I knew, it was hard for me to accept, because I have, despite my alcoholism and all the completely stupid things I did whilst living as a drunk, a rational and logical mind, kind of.... But I had been an alcoholic for many years and done many illogical things, and despite countless hospital visits, detoxes and serious and life threatening experiences, I continued to drink, so what happened to change this?

I was lucky because I had what the AA call a 'spiritual experience' whilst I was in my last rehab, and that's where my recovery really began. If you've ever been in rehab, you'll know that it's a fairly safe place to begin a recovery from addiction, because you're away from all the temptations that usually you are confronted with in the real world. But that's part of the problem. Coming back out into mainstream life after three or even six months in a rehab can be a mind blowing exprience and can present you with all sorts of problems that you may find difficult to handle, and can easily lead to relapse. Unfortunately I have known many people who, on leaving rehab, relapsed and eventually died. The problem is usually that you go back out to the same situation and the same people and circle of friends that were there before you went in. This must be avoided, at least for a good while, you can't mix with drinkers if you're an alcoholic, and you can't mix with junkies if you're recovering from a drug addiction. If you do, you are likely to start again where you left off, and you are likely to die.

The most important thing I did when I left my last rehab was to get a job. I needed to have a reason to get up in the morning and I didn't care what I did or where I worked. Again I was lucky, and got a job within a week of leaving rehab, working for B and Q. The hours of the job were such that I couldn't attend AA meetings, but for me the self respect I gained from getting up each morning and going off to work was much more important. And I didn't have to time to sit around thinking about my situation, which had proved disastrous in the past. The next thing I did was to start writing down my experiences, which is where Demons in the Dark came from, initially for my own benefit, but after a while and much encouragement from friends and family, I decided to publish it and see where it went. If it helps one addict then it was worth the effort.

I wanted to work in the care sector really, so I applied for and got another job in the social care sector. Lucky again. I'm still working in this job and I love it. It can be a very demanding and stressful job, but its worthwhile and rewarding. The point I'm trying to make here is that giving up the booze leaves a bloody great hole inside you that needs to be filled with something. Work seemed to be the ideal solution, and along with not thinking I was cured and becoming complacement has helped me greatly. That's another huge danger, thinking that after you've been sober for a while it's fine to go out and have a little taster, a pint of two just to prove to yourself that you're better now. I done that a lot too, and it always ended badly. You can't cure alcoholism!

To me though, the most important realisation of all, was that the hole had always been there, and for thirty odd years I had tried to fill it with alcohol. And then, completely against all my rational thinking and Mr Spock logic, I realised that the hole I had been trying to fill with booze for most of my life was exactly God shaped, and that once I invited Him in by asking for help, the hole was filled and all desire and craving for alcohol completely disappeared. So maybe I wasn't being lucky all these times, maybe I had help. OK, I can the the sniggering from here. But that's fine, I don't mind. I'm sober and happy, and it's my beliefs that keep me that way, so snigger away.

My top tips for sober living

• Put your trust and your life into the hands of God as you understand him, it works if you believe it.
• Stay away from wet places and away from people who use alcohol or drugs.
• Don't get complacent, don't think you're cured, cause you ain't and you never will be.
• Go to as many AA meetings as you can, be with like minded people.
• Be careful of getting into relationships too soon, other peoples expectations can be dangerous for you.
• Try to read the Big Book at least once a day (I keep mine in the toilet), allow yourself a little reflective time to remember where you've come from, and just how far you've come.
• Thank God everyday for you sobriety and for giving you your life back.
• Be nice to people, avoid anger and resentments, they're both dangerous.
• Smile